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The 59th Street electric powerhouse, New York City, 1904.

The Utility of Utilities

Climate activists are no fans of electric utilities. But the alternatives that they often prefer will not deliver infrastructural change at the scale we need.
by Matt Huber, Fred Stafford via Damage on April 1, 2024
Jimmy Carter examines solar panels to be installed at the White House.

Jimmy Carter, Green-Energy Visionary

As President, he told us that we needed to shift to solar power. We should have listened to him then.
by Bill McKibben via The New Yorker on December 29, 2024
Nuclear power plant cooling towers billowing steam.
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Nuclear Meltdowns Raised Fears, but Growing Energy Needs May Outweigh Them

Catastrophic accidents at power plants have heightened fears about the safety of nuclear energy, but it's getting renewed attention as a way to fight global warming.
via Retro Report on January 5, 2023
Illustration of a coal stove with the roof of a house, as if the whole house is a furnace.

When Coal First Arrived, Americans Said 'No Thanks'

Back in the 19th century, coal was the nation's newfangled fuel source—and it faced the same resistance as wind and solar today.
by Clive Thompson via Smithsonian on July 5, 2022

Sea Shanties and the Whale Oil Myth

Oil companies like to point to the demise of the whaling industry as an example of market-based energy solutions. The reality is much more complicated.
by Kate Aronoff via The New Republic on January 22, 2021

A Centuries-Old Idea Could Revolutionize Climate Policy

The Green New Deal’s mastermind is a precocious New Yorker with big ambitions. Sound familiar?
by Robinson Meyer via The Atlantic on February 19, 2019
Artistic photo of factory pollution

Endless Combustion

Three new books examine how the rise of coal, oil, and gas have permanently remade our world.
by Bill McKibben via The Nation on February 6, 2019
Coal power plant.
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It’s Time to Ditch Coal, Not Clean It

In the 19th century, Americans abandoned one source of dirty energy. Can they do it again?
by Raymond Malewitz via Made By History on July 26, 2017
Photograph of cars bumper to bumper on a highway, USA (year unknown, likely during 1970s energy crisis)

How Congress Planned To Solve The 1970s Energy Crisis

Representative Mo Udall's ambitious strategy to wean the United States off fossil fuels by the year 2000.
by Morris K. Udall via The New Republic on June 16, 1973
Highways & Horizons, front and back covers of brochure for the General Motors pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. [Prelinger Library]

Highways and Horizons

The Interstate Highway System created a national polity defined by circulation. To rethink the Interstates is to rethink the United States.
by Reinhold Martin via Places Journal on June 20, 2025
A rendering of Buckminster Fuller and June Jordan's “Skyrise for Harlem” project published in Esquire, April 1965.

Nowhere But Up

In the wake of the 1964 Harlem riots, June Jordan and Buckminster Fuller’s plan to redesign the neighborhood suggested new possibilities for urban life.
by Nikil Saval via New York Review of Books on June 8, 2024
Post card depicting coal miners in PA

When Did Americans Start Using Fossil Fuel?

The nineteenth-century establishment of mid-Atlantic coal mines and canals gave America its first taste of abundant fossil fuel energy.
by Livia Gershon, Christopher F. Jones via JSTOR Daily on October 11, 2023
Smoke coming from Exxon Mobil plant

Inside Exxon's Strategy To Downplay Climate Change

Internal documents show what the oil giant said publicly was very different from how it approached the issue privately in the Tillerson era.
by Christopher Matthews, Collin Eaton via The Wall Street Journal on September 14, 2023
Scientists releasing weather balloons
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Healing the Ozone: First Steps Toward Success

A worldwide effort to heal damage to the ozone layer is showing early progress.
via Retro Report on September 12, 2023
A miner carries a sack of ore at the Shabara mine near Kolwezi.

First They Mined for the Atomic Bomb. Now They’re Mining for E.V.s.

Miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo face few protections in the global rush for metals in energy transition—a toxic legacy from mining nuclear weapons.
by Roger Peet via The New Republic on August 30, 2023
William Barber III standing in front of Vera Brown Farm.

Rebuilding the Homestead

How Black landowners in eastern North Carolina are recovering generational wealth lost to industry encroachment.
by Cameron Oglesby via The Margin on October 25, 2022

Puerto Rico Can Blame Its Total Blackout on Predatory Companies and Poor Decisions in Washington

Hurricane Fiona hit the island as only a Category 1 storm. But thanks to bad management, the electrical grid immediately collapsed.
by Kate Aronoff via The New Republic on September 20, 2022
Heavy machinery pushes coal at the Ramaco Resources Stonecoal Alma mine near Wylo, W.Va., on Aug. 8, 2017.
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Supreme Court Could Thwart EPA’s Ability to Address Climate Change

No matter the outcome of West Virginia v. EPA, the agency can take action to engage the public and make its data more accessible.
by Leif Fredrickson via Made By History on February 28, 2022
Horses standing next to a car.

What Extremely Muscular Horses Teach Us About Climate Change

You can’t understand the history of American energy use without them. A new visual history puts them in context.
by Robinson Meyer via The Atlantic on December 8, 2020
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez speaks to an audience in front of a Green New Deal sign.
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The Federal Government Subsidized the Carbon Economy. Now it Should Subsidize a Greener One.

Why the Green New Deal fits right in with America’s energy economy.
by Ryan Driskell Tate via Made By History on April 26, 2019
A row of windmills

History of the United States Farm Bill

How U.S. agricultural policy has evolved over time.
by Bailey DeSimone, Sidonie Devarenne via Library of Congress

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